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Shorting Bitcoin

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Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#251

Post by puranjay »

Sammi wrote: post #196
prionassembly wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh. Brazil (the government! same one that botched the response to Covid) instituted an universal mechanism to wire any amount of money instantly for free — there goes your use case, not to mention Venmo, etc. Of note: INSTANTLY. You can pay a random handyman you need in an emergency, or split bar tabs, or pay out-of-pocket expenses with doctors, whatever. I use it in lieu of credit cards for e-commerce too. https://w…

You're relying on a nation state to behave in a certain way. This never works out in the long term. The winds of politics change on a whim. That's just history for you. With Bitcoin you instead rely on the intrinsic properties of the protocol. No ifs or buts.

you still need a way to turn that BTC into cash you can use daily, and that requires an on/off ramp. For any large amount, P2P is out of the question. You will need to go through an exchange which will have to comply with the local laws of the nation state.

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#252

Post by SigmundA »

rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #112
cma wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was Panasonic, and for the China market they switched to the same pouch cells as everyone else.

False. Tesla has never used pouch celles in the Chinese market.

Prismatic CATL's right? Closer to a pouch than cylindrical 21700's.

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#253

Post by puranjay »

rorykoehler wrote: post #144
arcticbull wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free, instant transfers are already the status quo in a lot of the world, as of course they do not require blockchain. SEPA Instant Payment in the EU, for instance. In fact they're way faster than a Bitcoin transaction much of the time - and obviously way less expensive ($0 vs. $5-60). The US is moving to 24/7 free, instant payments as RTP rolls out. [1] The US has been quite far behind historically on this front how…

Costs me €1.50 per transfer in Germany. Also costs me in Singapore. It should just be the be default.

Here in India, I can make transfers via UPI for free. For larger amounts, I can use IMPS which costs INR 5 ($0.067). Both are instant and have highly usable apps from trustworthy providers.

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#254

Post by puranjay »

1experience wrote: post #248

This is how to lose money with shorting 101. You should never base your shorts on solely rational points (long-term rational points, even worse) when going short on bubbly assets. Things like "Bitcoin is not a viable payment method, it's centralized, possibly manipulated, fueled by the greater fool" is not a valid shorting motive unless you have a triggering event caused by your aforementioned rational point.

My thesis for longing/shorting BTC at this point is purely Elon Musk's tweets

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#255

Post by xtracto »

bhawks wrote: post #163
Paradigma11 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it is. There are PoS chains running for years without problems (Tezos..). https://viktorbunin.medium.com/proof-of-stakes-security-mode...

Tezos is amazing, it has upgraded itself entirely through on chain voting governance 6 times. No drama, no crazy rollouts. Tezos smart contract ecosystem has grown to 10% of Ethereum and it's gas prices are pennies (and will continue to be). Ah if the market was logical.

Commodore and Macintosh were superior to the IBM PC. still, the PC was the leader tech of the 80s and 90s.

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#256

Post by jakelazaroff »

factorialboy wrote: post #99
jakelazaroff wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where by “historically” you mean twice?

2013. 2017. 2021. Three in three.

How can you cite 2021? Your hypothesis was a peak after 1 year and then a bottom for 3.5 years, but it’s only been eight months since the 2020 election.

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#257

Post by ludamad »

jschulenklopper wrote: post #218
panarky wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since he bought his puts on 6/26, BTC is up 9.5%, MSTR is up 9.9% and COIN is up 13.5%. He's already pretty deep underwater.

Is he underwater? Aren't the put options that he bought previously just not cheaper now? On options being underwater: "Underwater stock options have an exercise price which is greater than the market price of the underlying stock." Is that his situation?

To be "short" you can sell borrowed equities, sell calls that you write, or buy put options. Buying put options will cap your risk at the option price (I think underwater just meant "lost lots of money" - more likely to go out of bounds with the first two kinds of short positions)

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#258

Post by acomjean »

thisisit wrote: post #244
lordnacho wrote: post #59

Derivatives guy here. Perfectly fine opinion, but two issues. Why now? This is a general investing issue. Trading costs money, holding a put costs money, so why will the market do what you think in this time frame? Why are the puts cheap? This could be substantiated with some numbers, esp implied volatility. Are they cheap vs history? I don't know, but the reasoning should show why you think so. Note I'm not looking…

I think there is lot of subjectivity in this trade. The timing of the trade mostly author's gut feel that bitcoin will soon transition to a seller market as everyone who wants to buy bitcoin will already have one. Puts being cheap is also a subjective measure. Author might be looking at past prices and making the bet. He isn't looking at greeks at all.

I know to some extent trading stocks is a little like gambling. A lot of things you have no idea about can happen, but there is a lot of data that can help you make an educated guess. Even then a lot of unforeseen factors move a stock price.

Crypto investing seems a lot more like straight up gambling, where there isn’t a ton to go on. Even less to go on than investing in a regular currency, which isn’t very mainstream.

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#259

Post by aazaa »

Shorting deep into a double-digit correction sounds just as likely to lose money as buying deep into a double-digit expansion.

The author is talking about a short-term trade, not an investment. There's a lot less room for error on the timing, and I suspect the timing here.

On that note, the author says nothing about the halving cycle. Proceed with caution, brave "shorter."

The bigger problem is that all of the author's criticisms have been valid for many years. This is old news. It would be more interesting to read about a complaint that has never been discussed before and to understand why this time will be different for Bitcoin.

Re: Shorting Bitcoin

#260

Post by bob33212 »

breck wrote: post #43

I love this sort of thing. He’s making a bet, explains his reasoning, and does it in the open! That’s great. I disagree that there’s no tech here. IMO public ledgers that never sleep are far superior(thanks to the hard work of many people over the past decade), and their advantage over retail banking will only increase. My online banks keep getting worse, crypto keeps getting better. Think about this: banks are CLOSE…

"Banks are old and slow, technology is fast and new" so technology will win. That is totally reasonable logic.

But bitcoin provides no protection from fraud by design. If someone breaks into your house or hacks your computer and steals your private key you have no way of getting that bitcoin back. But if someone impersonates you at the bank the bank has ways of refunding you. Maybe some people prefer the bitcoin design, but most people will not.

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